


Causa Fragilis

by lferion



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Comfort, Episode Tag, Gen, Introspection, Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-05
Updated: 2011-06-05
Packaged: 2017-10-20 04:42:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/208849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nikola watches James sleep</p>
            </blockquote>





	Causa Fragilis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Penknife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penknife/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Morale](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/3492) by Penknife. 



> This is a tag to Penknife’s 'Morale', which is in turn a tag for the S3 episode ‘Normandy’. It also goes with the theme of cuddling. There is comfort even if there isn’t any actual cuddling.
> 
> Many thanks to Morgynleri for encouragement, editing and commentary.

Nikola raised his own glass and sipped in return to James' unironic toast, then quite deliberately busied himself with making notes. His rooms were warm and quiet. Presently the alcohol, the undemanding company, and Nikola's most comfortable armchair did their work and James' eyes fell closed as his breath eased into the cadence of sleep. (Certainly not helped by the fractional adjustments Nikola had made to the mechanism, no, not at all.)

The light from the high windows was unforgiving to James’ angular features, revealing every mark and hollow. Even asleep he was not relaxed. Lines furrowed his brow, bracketed a tense mouth and thinned lips, fanned from eyes restless with dreams. James was in much more pain than he would ever acknowledge, both physical and not. Not to mention exhausted. The mechanism ticked and whirred very softly, a complex symphony to vampire hearing.

Nikola’s fingers itched to properly go over the device; scrub the very memory of ill use from it, every touch and taint of violent hands. And wasn’t that a joke: his own hands were hardly clean, and John’s …. But it was Korba’s careless cruelty that Nikola wanted to erase, make sure no evil (and there really was no better word) lingered to disturb the works. That which sustained life should not be used for torment. In the unquiet Whitehall hush, the clockwork carried on its office, the steady beat of James’ heart, the pulse of his blood, the pattern of his breath. Steady, but not sturdy. Persistent, dogged, perceptive … and mortal. They could have lost him in that bunker; would have, without Nigel, without his own fierce will.

Would lose him, one day. (Not this day, no. Never this day, by all the arts mechanic and physic, chemic and bloody rhetoric if it came to that. ) Would lose.

Nikola rarely forgot that Nigel was mortal, as Nigel himself insisted on it. The source blood had gifted him with long but not unchanging youth. Nikola (well, none of them, except Nigel) didn’t like it, but had come to a (grudging) acceptance. That James faced the same limit was far harder to bear. It was much too easy to remember that he was in fact closer to ninety than eighty, and that powerful intellect housed in fragile, wounded flesh. With those bright and seeing eyes closed, without the quicksilver mind to animate the harsh mien, mortality was all too apparent.

James sighed a little in his sleep, and turned his head to rest more comfortably against the cushioned wing of the chair. Nikola sighed too, banishing the prickle that stung his eyes. There was always dust in the air these days. It was getting chill, too. Moving with the quietness he never failed to appreciate, Nikola slid the glass from James’ lax fingers and fetched out a rug from the sofa in the alcove. The light was fast dimming, the shadows more gentle than the fickle sunlight. He tucked the soft folds gently over James’ legs, drawing a corner up to drape over a shoulder, covering the glint of brass and copper where his still-unbuttoned shirt gapped. James’ eyelashes were fine black lines against the bruised smudges of exhaustion.

Nikola could see the pulse in the hollow of his throat, between the sharp wings of his collarbones, light and even. Fragile, indomitable, untrusting man, and yet, here he was, trusting the vampire — no, trusting his friend, who happened to be a vampire, to guard his sleep.

“Sleep without dreams, my friend. I’ll watch out for the monsters.”

For a moment, Nikola wished he could wrap James in his arms, not just a blanket, but indeed, that wouldn’t be wise. Not here, not now. Instead he allowed himself only the lightest of touches to James’ hair before going back to the desk. There might be something he could do to safeguard the mechanism, make it both do more and be less accessible to tampering. Surely there was some clever way….


End file.
